Social Icons

Monday, April 14, 2014

The other day I saw one of those "stylish lifestyle" sites posting about the Instagram accounts we should like totally follow. I went to look who they were. Oprah? Obama? A designer? A cool stylist? Nope. Just a bunch of models that only took selfies of themselves, every day at multiple hours of the day.

I asked myself, why would I want to saturate my feed with pictures of possibly narcissistic women with unattainable beauty? In case you don't know, selfies have been linked to mental disorders, including narcissism. We are drawn to beautiful things, case in point the existence of Pinterest, but it is that aspirational mentality and "I wish I could look like that/have that/buy that" that really affects happiness.

Acceptance of self is formed by a multitude of factors. The way your parents treated you when you were young, your friends, early relationships, failures and successes. But what you pay the most attention to, place your mental energy on, will ultimately have a deep impact on you, whether you consciously know that or not.

So, choose the people you follow on social media wisely because they may be doing more than providing mindless entertainment.